24 September 2025

You may think this question is relatively – or wholly absurd. But read on – you may be surprised by what follows.

To begin, theologians, philosophers, and scientists have thought for ages that they KNEW how our planet – one of billions in our galaxy alone – REALLY works. Small minds working through small brains on a small planet “figured it out” over the centuries.

In out time (1997), scientific journalist John Horgan published a book called The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age. Horgan wrote that all major scientific discoveries – natural selection, the double helix, the big bang, the relativity and quantum theories – have been made. Only refinements are left and no more revolutions or revelations are yet to be had. Just details.

Really? There surely must be grand “details” left to settle.
   
While the Church of Science has replaced the Church of Religion in recent times, the Church of Medicine has followed along. Yet as almost the whole of human life has become “medicalized,” disease seems to plague larger and larger and larger portions of western society. It is estimated that over sixty percent of Americans suffer from one chronic illness or another.

“Medical science has made such tremendous progress
that there is hardly a healthy human left.”
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

There seem to be more and more medical specialties, thousands of diagnoses for all manner of illness, and “a pill for every ill.” That even though a rare few of human ills are understood and treatable without side effects. Lewis Thomas called Medicine “The Youngest Science.” But, he surely wrote so with a twinkle in his eye.

Charles Sidney Burwell, Dean of the Harvard Medical School, used to tell entering students decades ago, “Half of what we are going to teach you here is wrong and half is right. Unfortunately, we do not know which half is which.” If Burwell were alive today, he might well admit that more – much more – than half is wrong.

Hippocrates’s ancient “rule of three” still holds sway after more than two millennia: One-third of patients get better on their own, another third do not respond to treatment, and the final third truly benefit from treatment. This principle emphasizes the natural healing power of the body (vis medicatrix naturae) and encourages physicians to promote self-healing whenever possible.

Even in this advanced day, as in the other sciences, “There is a vast ocean of ignorance at the heart of medicine.” (James Le Fanu) Medical ignorance is rampant in large part because medics simply do not understand that humans are beings and not bodies. Medical advancements are more apparent than real while westerners get sicker and more addicted to drugs – doctor prescribed as well as self prescribed.
 
Surely, what we take as Real changes in outward perception from time to place and station. But, do experiments and experiences, sensations and feelings determine what is Real? How can we know? How can anyone really know? Who knows?

One of our favorite thinkers, Socrates, said long ago, “I know only one thing and that is I know nothing.” We suspect that his wife Xanthippe told him to say that. Do women know and men just think they know?



We are also reminded of a similar quote from an ancient Chinese philosopher who lived in an epoch close to that of Socrates. The renowned modern teacher and writer Joseph Campbell made Chuang Tzu famous in the West by repeating the Chinese sage’s words: “He who thinks he knows, doesn’t know. He who thinks he doesn’t know, knows.”

The Hindu teacher Patanjali, who also lived a few centuries BCE, told in his Yoga Sutras that there are five modifications of mind: Incorrect Knowledge, Correct Knowledge, Fantasy or Imagination, Passivity or Sleep, and Memory.

To discover the Real, the True, and the Lasting, we must go beyond Science and Medicine, Philosophy and Religion to correct – Real Knowledge.

This thread leads to the understanding – not knowledge – that most all of us live almost entirely in states of mental activity which are far from Correct Knowledge or Gnosis. If we were truly Gnostic – Mindful, we would live much more productive lives approaching the perfection exhibited by Jesus of Nazareth. “Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:5

Well, yes, all of us are far from that state of mind – if there are exceptions in the present time, they keep silent. We are much more in the incorrect knowledge – not knowing – state. That even though we may wish to think we know – and try to make others think we do. Even the wisest of us, like Socrates and Chuang Tzu, have a far piece to travel to achieve that exalted state of mind and thought.

Still believe it or not, it is quite possible to “Be ye perfect as the Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 5:48 However distant that world may be, we can aim for it – then take a step at a time.

So, we suggest another way to look in the direction of Knowledge of the Real. Which is to consider that you and I live in not one but two worlds. We all live in two worlds, however oblivious we are of our greater existence.

In this sense we are like Janus, the two-headed Roman god. We live in our daily outer world of thought, feeling, and action. Then, we also exist in an inner world which dwells in the midst of the outer, well-known one.

During the hours of sleep, the brain and body rest and go silent. But, the subtler and persisting parts of our greater nature travel abroad – in the inner sphere. That is so for most all of us, while very few have developed the language and brain consciousness to move fluently from nightly experiences into the light of day. Knowers – few as they are – are aware of both worlds 24/7 and the Inner World comes fully alive to them while the rest of us sleep quite obliviously.

Science and medicine have no means to penetrate into the realm which we enter in the hours of sleep because their methods are limited to those based on the physical body. Even in this advanced time, humans are considered to be merely brain and body. This is the crux of the dilemma.

Nonetheless, humans have been recognized for ages to be spirit, mind and body – the body being the material manifestation of the inner being and inner world. But with the advancement and increasing reign of science, inner dimensions have been forgotten, ignored, or explained – however inadequately – by simplistic, materialistic reasoning.

“The spirit is the master,
the imagination (mind) is the tool,
and the body the plastic material.”
Paracelsus

To get close to Reality, we must gain entry into that part of existence which is not dependent on time, place and station. When that is accomplished, a truly holistic paradigm will appear in scientific studies, current education, and daily living.

In the meantime, let us try to imagine the much broader, subtler reaches of the Real World which underlay all that our bodily senses and mechanical devices recognize in the outer realm. We can say that the physical, material world in which we inhabit is “the tip of the iceberg.” What we take as facts in our lives are effects – not causes.

We must seek Causes – Truth – Reality within the depths of our very Nature. When we seek First the Kingdom Within, we shall most surely be able to differentiate between the Real and the Unreal, Truth and Illusion, Death and Immortality.

 “Ask, and it shall be given you;
seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
Matthew 7:7